Following the King’s Speech, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said it would introduce a “national scheme of delegation” that “focuses planning committees on the applications that really matter, avoids a potential development being reviewed multiple times even where it’s been included in the local plan, and places more trust in skilled professional planners”.
The Government has now consulted on a new National Scheme of Delegation and has drafted new regulations and guidance to support this, which is expected to come into force by the end of September 2026.
This article looks at the key points relating to these changes particularly affecting SME developers and briefly considers changes to the size of Planning Committees and the training of Committee members.
The Core purposes of the new Scheme
Sections 319ZZC - 319ZZF of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (introduced through section 54 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025) and The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026 (the 2026 Regulations) relate to the national scheme of delegation of planning functions and the size of planning committees.
The main aims of the new National Scheme of Delegation (NSD) are to bring:
• Consistency across LPAs
• Clarity on who makes decisions
• Faster decision making
As a key principle, planning committees should focus only on the most important proposals; routine decisions should be made by officers.
